Paternity Testing Without Father and Mother? The German Company bj-diagnostik Investigates that Two babies Separately Left at Charity Institution are Siblings

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It is certainly due to personal emergency situations when parents leave behind their children at charity institutions that offer an anonymous hand over (in Germany, the "Babyklappe"), but a recent case revealed that at least one couple left behind two children as new borns at an interval of a few years. If you suspect abandonned children might be siblings, how can you find out? Although results of DNA paternity testing are most accurate when both father and mother are tested, bj-diagnostik is able to perform indirect sibling tests when samples of the alleged father, or even mother, are not available, by using samples of only brothers or sisters to establish the degree of relatedness through mathematical methods.

preparation of sample swabs for DNA analysis

Paternity testing is possible - even without the parents!

(PRWEB)December 23, 2009

The maximum certainty of a paternity test is achieved through the inclusion of both the alleged father and the mother in the DNA research. A DNA paternity test performed at bj-diagnostik can produce probabilities of paternity from 99.99% to 99.999999%. The exact value is produced through the test results in the combination of frequently and rarely occurring inherited characteristics which are passed on to the child from the father.

Even when no sample from the mother is available for testing, relationships and descent can be determined with high probability. With 16 DNA markers, which quality laboratories routinely test, values between 99.9% and 99.999% can be achieved.

Likewise, if no sample of the alleged father is available, e.g. if the father is already deceased or his whereabouts are unknown, paternity testing is feasible either by using available samples from remaining objects like glasses, watches, etc. or by performing an indirect paternity test: Similarly to a simple paternity test, bj-diagnostik can check whether two or more siblings had the same father. More information and with it a higher probability of descent are obtained when the mother or relatives of the father are involved in the sibling test.

Should the information produced through a DNA test not be sufficient to formulate a clear result, DNA fingerprints from further people from the known line of descent must be obtained. Through corresponding calculations (simulation), Dr. Michael Jung can investigate with which probability a relationship can be determined before the beginning of the DNA test.

The more information available (amount of sample people and DNA markers), the more meaningful the research result. Depending on the case, laboratories can test inheritance characteristics of up to 24 DNA markers.

Should the parents not be available for a test, siblings of the parents or the grandparents can be tested in order to answer questions of descent.

But how do you proceed in a case like the two foundlings, whose different foster parents suspected they might be siblings? There were neither samples of the unknown parents nor of any relatives - the only samples available were samples of the foundlings themselves.

In these cases bj-diagnostik uses information hidden in the paternal and maternal line of descent to complement the mathemical comparison of the children's genetic fingerprints: If the children in question are male, bj-diagnostik can research paternal lines of origin with the help of the Y-chromosome marker and achieve very precise results regarding the degree of relationship. For both female and male siblings it is possible to use mtDNA (mitochrondrial DNA), which is inherited through the maternal ancestry line, to determine whether they have the same mother.

The German company bj-diagnostik is specialized in indirect paternity testing (in German: Vaterschaftstest) and other sibling and relatedness tests. Dr. Michael Jung, who co-founded and today heads the company, is an expert in mathematical comparison of DNA profiles. Through several DNA and mathematical analyses he was able to prove that the two foundlings were indeed siblings!